disregard all proceedings in her case, the presbytery prepared itself to pass the awful doom of excommunication, when, behold! another act of concession on her part stays all: she agrees to be present at family worship in her own house--her husband was all this time a leading Covenanter--and promised also to hear sermon; whereupon the sentence was suspended for a time. In August 1649, the minister Reidford reported that she had ‘keepit sermon at Innerkeithing the last Lord’s day, and daily keepit family worship.’ This was not enough. They instruct Reidford ‘to shew her that, if she did not conform in all points, the sentence of excommunication would be pronounced before the next assembly.’ Reidford soon after pleaded for her, that she had heard three sermons; but the brethren ‘thought not that kind of hearing satisfactory.’ They ordained him to put her to a decided test at once, by offering her the Covenant: failing her subscribing that, Reidford was to pronounce sentence. [Sidenote: 1645.] The lady, with the ingenuity of her sex, contrived once more to put them off--she told Reidford she would take a thought about it. Meanwhile, she amused them with hopes by continuing to attend church; telling them ‘she was not fully satisfied for subscribing the Covenant.’ But even female wit could not hold out for ever against such a siege. In June 1650, after an incessant harassment of fourteen years, she gave them ‘satisfaction’ by subscribing the Covenant, and thus abjuring in words the faith she still held in her heart. Little more than two years had elapsed, when the presbytery learned that she had ‘relapsed to popery,’ and appointed commissioners to confer with her on the subject. It was found she was now obstinate in her original belief, ‘professing, moreover, that she repented of her former repentance more than of any sin that ever she committed, and thought that she had reason to repent all her lifetime for subscribing the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant.’ Then took place a renewal of the same tedious dealings with the lady, ending at last in 1654, in a peremptory order for her excommunication. By that time, however, excommunication had lost much of its terrors, as Cromwell, then master of Scotland, would not allow the sentence to have any consequences in respect of civil rights.